Semuels clearly traveled to Detroit to report on the city’s bankruptcy proceedings, but many of the claims made by the Times are misleading or disingenuous.

Claim: Detroiters question whether the city’s historic bankruptcy filing was motivated by race, and whether the city’s resources will be plundered to pay debt to “Wall Street creditors.”

It would be foolish to deny that race is a part of this conversation. Race is always a part of the conversation in Detroit. But the Times almost exclusively quoted members of the relatively small percentage of residents who have protested the bankruptcy.

During a public hearing in bankruptcy court to give individual objectors to the city’s Chapter 9 filing their say, Free Press reporters say only two of the 50-plus Detroiters who spoke made race the focus of their remarks. Both were quoted in the Times story; the story didn’t quote a single Detroit resident who supported the bankruptcy. Yet the Free Press’ reporting proves they’re out there.

Claim: “Many residents also have been critical of the state’s withdrawal of some of the financial support that it once gave the city, and the fact that the state applied for permission to pay back a loan to a bank before it makes pension payments.”

For starters, this sentence is a bit convoluted. One assumes that the Times is referring to emergency manager Kevyn Orr’s push to borrow $350 million in debtor-in-possession funding from Barclays, an international bank. About $230 million of the loan would pay off a set of interest rate swaps on a 2005 pension-obligation certificate deal that went south for the city, tying up millions in casino tax payments; the rest would fund operational restructuring.

But the Times story gives the impression that Orr is forgoing pension payments in favor of paying a loan. It’s true that Orr has proposed cutting retiree pensions and that Orr’s debt restructuring plan treats retiree pensions as unsecured debt, meaning the city wouldn’t be obligated to pay the unfunded portion of its pension liability. But retirees are currently receiving pension checks in full.

Claim: Here’s how the Times describes Midtown, one of Detroit’s most successful areas: “a small, revitalized area of a few blocks with a Whole Foods store, a yoga studio and a few coffee shops. ... Many young white professionals now live in the neighborhood.”

Calling Midtown a “small, revitalized area of a few blocks” without mentioning the major hospital and the university that center the area seems a little disingenuous — Midtown has been successful in attracting investment precisely because of “eds and meds,” as urban planners call educational or medical anchor institutions that provide natural centers for economic development. A recent report found that Detroit’s 7.2-square-mile greater downtown (which includes Midtown) is 68% African-American and 21% white. Not to mention the fact that Midtown is far larger than “a few blocks.”

Claim: Detroiters believe that Michiganders have shown a racial bias in their enthusiasm for Detroit Mayor-elect Mike Duggan: “Why, they wonder, have Michigan residents seemed to blame Detroit’s problems on bad leadership by some of its past mayors, who were black, while expressing so much optimism about the election of a white mayor?”

As a candidate and as mayor-elect, Duggan has enjoyed a great deal of support from across the metro region. But so did Dave Bing, Detroit’s current mayor, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, currently serving a federal prison term for a conviction on corruption charges, and let’s not forget former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer. All of whom are African American.

And this last one falls under “full disclosure”: The Times quotes political consultant Sam Riddle, but doesn’t mention that Riddle recently served 37 months in prison for bribery. The story also quotes Monica Lewis-Patrick, who laments that African Americans are “only a few footsteps away from slavery,” but neglects to mention that Lewis-Patrick, a political protege of current Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, ran for council this year. She didn’t make it through the primary.